APP OF THE YEAR: IMPROVING YOUR DIGITAL EXPERIENCE - PART II
THE FINAL SECTION OF OUR YEARCONCLUDING EXTRAVAGANZA
It’s the end of the year, and Apple has announced the movers, shakers and groundbreakers that created the most popular apps of 2018. Last week we looked at some of the most popular trends, games, free-todownload apps and the apps designed to make organizing your life just that little bit easier. This week, it’s time for part two.
With 2018 being such an incredible, exciting and diverse year to be engaged with the App Store, we’ve still got plenty more to
come. Here, in part two of the apps that could improve your life, we feature the most innovative and popular for your wrist, desktop and phone camera, as well as those AR-awesome apps that reshape reality in front of us.
We’ve also covered the best in business and finance apps, in addition to paying homage to the incredible developers who made 2018 a year to remember for mobile software. In short, you need to check out this compendium of astounding apps before we say goodbye to this year for good.
APPS TO WATCH
In the same year Apple launched its outstanding Apple Watch Series 4, WaterMinder was the most popular Apple Watch app of the year. Helping users to stay hydrated in a more fun and visually engaging way than the iPhone version and similar apps, WaterMinder measures hydration, records the times and volumes of the liquid you take, and tells you how much you have left to drink each day.
Lifesum – which also measures water consumption – finished in second spot, and allows Apple Watch wearers to track their food intake like no other app designed for the wrist. It doesn’t just measure the calories that you burn and eat, as it also shows a macro breakdown of food consumed and can be adjusted to support different dietary needs, such as low-carb, ketogenic and high-protein.
2018’S BIGGEST MAC APPS
Pixelmator Pro was the standout from this year’s Mac apps. Priced at $39.99, it’s certainly not one to buy just for fun, but is nonetheless a must-have for anyone looking to touch up their photographs before publication in print or online. With its professional-grade editing tools and user-friendly design, it enables Mac users to access a much cheaper and simpler alternative to Photoshop.
The Mac game of the year award, meanwhile, went to The Gardens Between by developers The Voxel Agents. An adventure-puzzle game that plays clever tricks on gamers and tests the memory, this single-player title tells an intriguing story about time and friendship.
FINANCIAL ESSENTIALS
Cash App finished the year in first place in the Finance charts, and was barely challenged all year long. This versatile app can be used to send and spend money and even buy Bitcoin, if that’s your thing. The notifications within the app will remind you to take invoices and paychecks to the bank, as well as put you in touch with relevant offers and discounts for products that you can buy with Cash App.
At the end of its first full year in the charts, Square Point of Sale (POS) has made it easier for millions of small and independent businesses to accept card transactions for their products and services. Customers can pay, tip and even sign on their iPhone, and users see funds deposited fast and securely, while the payment and service bought is logged and archived for efficient bookkeeping. The only hardware required is Square’s small, unobtrusive Square Reader, which can also be easily synced with receipt printers, bar code scanners and cash drawers.
FABULOUS PHOTOGRAPHY
While Pixelmator Pro was certainly a gamechanger for Mac users who love to play with their imagery, there was a plethora of incredible photography apps released for mobile in 2018. VSCO is free to download, with in-app purchases and membership available at $19.99. Much more importantly, however, it provides users with simple technology that can transform photos and videos, and then curate and showcase them on an accessible platform. With a minimalistic design and interface, it’s not only an intuitive app to learn – it’s also a difficult app to become lost in, which makes it an advantageous choice for visual editors of all skill levels.
Afterlight 2, funnily enough, finished the year at number two in the Photo and Video Charts, following Afterlight Collective’s overhaul of the original, immensely popular first version. At $2.99, it is a paid-for app, but the developers add new and free content every month, and don’t charge for updates. With advanced tools to illuminate your photo gallery and screenshots, Afterlight 2 now features overlays, dust and light-leak effects, artwork and text for memes and annotations, and high-quality zooming for precision editing.
AUGMENTED REALITY
Carrot Weather wasn’t far off the top of many charts that we’ve already covered. One of the most popular apps of the year for both iPhone and Apple Watch, what sets it apart from and ahead of all other weather apps is its playful augmented reality (AR) function. Letting you watch the weather report unfold on the screen, Carrot Weather doesn’t just tell you what to expect as you set off on a journey; it also lays the information out in front of you, wherever you are.
This year, Sensopia launched the most innovative and popular version of its magicplan app to date. Making the most of AR for the home and workplace, users can record the dimensions of rooms and floor spaces to create detailed floor plans for use in renovations and refurbishments. Becoming a practical tool for businesses, magicplan can help workforces to calculate the materials required to perform a job, plus create close estimates for job costings in the process. The free version is an essential for any homeowner looking to change the look of their living space, and allows you to take accurate measurements from your home straight into the furniture store, so that you can begin putting your dream room together.
DESIGNERS OF DEVELOPMENT
As we already mentioned in part one of this article, Annapurna Interactive appears to have been the biggest winner in app design during 2018, with Donut County and Gorogoa. While they are the only developers to feature twice in Apple’s most popular apps of 2018, the rest of the list is a combination of renowned developers and up-and-comers in the industry.
Epic Games and Tencent Mobile International Limited have now established themselves in the app-based games industry, with Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds shading the efforts of the regular big-hitting developers Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. and Supercell.
The Voxel Agents, mentioned earlier, and Snowman (creators of the Apple TV Game of the Year, Alto’s Odyssey were among the other developers to do well with their games apps this year.
Calm.com and 10% Happier Inc. were among the most successful developers in the Self-Care category of the year’s trends, and were joined by the likes of Headspace Inc., Joyable Inc., Mend Tech Inc., Fabulous, Shine, The Bikini Body Training Company Pty Ltd and Tru Luv Media, Inc.
AS FOR WHAT’S NEXT…
With 2019 almost upon us, rumors are already circulating about what the big trends of the next 12 months will be. It doesn’t look like Battle Royale is going anywhere in games, but nothing is certain in the fast-paced world of app development. AR is set to be strong, but VR still looks some distance from becoming a popular trend for app developers or users.
With 5G wireless set to land, however, we could be looking at a year of the fastest, most responsive and user-friendly suite of apps we’ve had yet. Let’s hope this is one trend that keeps delivering, year on year.